Jeff Bzdelik's frustration level is rising with each loss his Deacons suffer

The hiring of Jeff Bzdelik at Wake Forest last spring was one that left many long-time ACC observers scratching their heads in amazement.

On the surface, the 58-year-old Illinois native had nothing athletic director Ron Wellman said he was looking for in a new basketball coach, other than a long-standing friendship with him and a daughter that attended Wake Forest.

Nineteen games into Bzdelik’s tenure with the Demon Deacons, the choice has become even more curious.

Taking over a program that went 44-18 with two NCAA tournament appearances in the two previous seasons under Dino Gaudio, Bzdelik has struggled to a 7-12 record that includes four straight blowout losses since the start of the conference schedule.

The implosion of the Deacons hit a new low Wednesday when they went to Atlanta and were manhandled to the tune of 74-39 by the second-worst team in the ACC.

It was a total collapse that saw Wake shoot just 26 percent from the floor, miss 17 of 26 free throws and score just three points in the first 12½ minutes of the second half. The 39 points were the fewest the Deacons have scored since a 44-34 loss to North Carolina in January 1959.

And the worst thing about it is that the drubbing probably wasn’t rock bottom.

Not with Duke coming to Joel Coliseum on Saturday.

The skepticism surrounding Bzdelik’s hiring, combined with the possibility that his team will become the first in ACC history to go 0-16 has turned the Deacons into the basketball equivalent of a wreck along the side of the road.

You don’t want to slow down and look at it, but you just can’t help yourself.

It’s a rapidly deteriorating situation that begs the questions: Has there ever been an ACC program that has gone down so far and so fast? Has there ever been a more dubious coaching hire in the league? And most important, will Bzdelik and/or Wellman survive and be back next season to try and clean up the mess they’ve made?

The answers will come in due time.

But until then, here is a look at some of the other curious hires in ACC history and how their short tenures turned out:

Murdock

Jack Murdock, Wake Forest (1965-66): Murdock was a star player for the Deacons and a successful high school coach who won a state championship and earned induction into the North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame, but his one season as coach at his alma mater was a forgettable one. Murdock’s Deacons went just 8-18 (4-10 in the ACC) before he was unceremoniously replaced by Jack McCloskey. In Murdock’s defense, there was an extenuating circumstance to his short tenure at Wake. He was hired less than a month before the start of practice when Deacon coaching legend Bones McKinney abruptly resigned and was left with a roster devoid of talent, other than guards Bob Leonard and Paul Long.

McGeachy

Neil McGeachy, Duke (1973-74): Like Murdock, McGeachy was thrown into a difficult situation after his predecessor Bucky Waters stepped down just before the start of the season in September 1973. Duke originally pursued aging coaching legend Adolph Rupp to come in and take over, and thought it had a deal. But when that fell through at the last minute, McGeachy – an assistant under Waters – was given the job. He went 10-16 (2-10 in the ACC) before being replaced by Bill Foster the following year. His main claim to fame in his one season with the Blue Devils was a now legendary loss to arch-rival North Carolina, in which the Tar Heels erased an eight-point deficit in the final 17 seconds of regulation.

Wade

Bob Wade, Maryland (1986-89): This is the hire that most closely parallels Bzdelik’s because of the immediate backlash it caused among the school’s fan base and the dramatic decline that followed. Wade was a successful Baltimore high school coach who was brought to Maryland by outgoing chancellor John Slaughter, who was intent on leaving his mark by hiring the first black coach in ACC history. He succeeded at that, but little else, as Wade was in over his head from the moment he arrived in College Park. Taking over in the wake of the Len Bias tragedy and the subsequent firing of Lefty Dreisell, Wade went 0-14 in his first ACC season. He finished with a 36-50 overall record (7-35 ACC) and left the program on NCAA probation because of multiple rules infractions.

Doherty

Matt Doherty, North Carolina (2000-03): A member of the Tar Heels’ 1982 national championship team, Doherty was the compromise choice to replace Bill Guthridge after Roy Williams unexpectedly turned the job down. Doherty had been a head coach only one previous season before his hiring, and his inexperience showed. Though his 53-43 overall record (23-25 in the ACC) doesn’t look that bad, his fortunes took as drastic turn for the worse after a successful first season. Not only is he responsible for the worst season in school history – an 8-20 debacle in 2002 – but his brusque temperament succeeded in alienating both fans and his own players, leading several to threaten transfer if he wasn’t fired following an NIT season in 2002-03.

Not to defend Bzdelik, but it would have at least been fair to mention what Wake lost off last year’s team, including four starters (Smith, Williams, Aminu, and McFarland) and six of the nine players in their rotation overall. Then they lost their only true PG, freshman Tony Chennault, in the first game of the season. Not saying Bzdelik was a good hire, but this roster is threadbare, even with the solid recruiting class they brought in.

It’s not even the hire that really confuses me, it’s the fire. Everyone knew that Wake would struggle this year (just not this much). Dino had 3 good years. Why fire a coach who was winning 20+ and going to the NCAA and bring in a new coach and put him in a position in which you know the results are in the short term are going to be worse than what the previous coach produced? Why didn’t Wellman keep Dino for this year and let him be the one to suffer through what everyone knew was going to be a bad year and then replace him? Doing it that way everyone would have been more willing to give the new coach a chance. The way Wellman did this, Buzz will have lost all support and maybe even the confidence of his team before he even has a chance. In my opinion, this is all on Wellman.

As a fellow journalist, father and quite imperfect human being, I tend to give people a lot of leeway, but your failure to focus on Wake’s incredible personnel turnover/transition from last year to this one borders on gross negligence. WY is right on the money (Sandy makes a great point as well). Could you explain your reasoning on that, Brett?

In my humble opinion, here’s a better idea for a column — what would Coach K or Ol’ Roy do with the following?

I’ll answer your question with a question, Brian … What did Tony Bennett do in a similar situation last year? What has Brad Brownell done with a depleted roster at Clemson this year? If you put Coach K or Ol’ Roy — or even Dino Gaudio — in charge of that team, as undermanned as it understanably is they wouldn’t be losing to Stetson and Presybterian and they certainly wouldn’t be losing to a bad Georgia Tech team by 35 points.

Another consideration, and the main point of this post, is that given the unpopularity of Bzdelik’s hiring, both he and Wellman are in a position to lose their fan base (and perhaps the players themselves, none of whom were recruited by the current coach) much faster than someone who was viewed as a “better” choice from the get-go. It will be interesting to see how many of these kids are still in the program this time next year.

well ‘Ol Roy just went to GT and lost by 20 with his talent and experience, which is certainly 15 points better than WF’s talent. WF is in deep trouble no doubt, but if GT is the second worst team in the league then the league is way better than people say.

Make no mistake: my post was not a defense of Wake’s coach. My argument was that if ever a point/angle in a column begged for context it was here. You failed to provide it.

Honest question (since I am not the ACC insider/expert): how similar are Bennett’s and Brownell’s situations really to Coach Bzdelik’s? Did they lose their full backcourt consisting of an All-ACC 2nd team PG and a 1st team defensive SG to graduation, an NBA lottery pick, two other seniors including a starter, their center/arguably most experienced returning player and their only eligible PG to injury (for the first 2+ months of the season)?

Honest question #2: wasn’t the Wellman-Bzdelik cozy relationship/friendship report largely debunked by one or more of your fellow ACC journalists?

Again, I make a point to clarify the “honest” tone here because I know you have to deal with a lot of jacklegs in this space.

This is not in defense of either Bzdelik or the hiring process. The judgment on that will be given in the 14 months to come. Nor is this meant to be a slam at Gaudio, who did some things very well. But, in-game coaching and even game preparation were far, far from his strengths. If you speculate that Dino would have had better success with this team – well, we’ll agree to disagree on that assertion.

I am not a Wake fan per say but all of this has to be on the AD. He apparently just could not or would not work with Dino. You just don’t fire someone who produced a decent record and hire someone because you like him. If anything, The AD has thrown Bzdlek under the bus as well. Your AD has set the Wake Program back a few years. Believe Me. It happened at UNCW as well but I think We may recover Quickly.

Enjoyed the article. Gotta say that this hire seemed like a conundrum from day one. As an ACC fan, Wake strikes me as a premiere coaching job, so it is strange that the AD didn’t go after someone with a better track record, or even a young, unproven coach with lots of enthusiasm (which is definitely missing from this young team). I hope it works out for them. I know that he’ll probably get three years to prove himself, but an ACC team, especially one with a top ten recruiting class should never lose to some of those teams. Good luck, Deacs.